The present invention pertains to an ion plating or deposition method whereby deposited films are formed in a multi-layer fashion on a substrate under different operating conditions.
Generally, in ion plating such as ionized cluster deposition or other ion deposition, material is ionized and accelerated toward a substrate with kinetic energy imparted thereto to obtain deposited films which show good adhesion to the substrate.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved ion plating method which enables the formation of a multi-layer structure in which respective layers are deposited upon a substrate under conditions where a ratio of ionized particles to neutral particles is achieved. The present invention is dependent upon the novel fact that better results in film formation are achieved by depositing a mixture of ionized high speed particles and neutral particles on the substrate at the same time.